Reflection
by Grandiose Me
Summary: F!Warden/Leliana femmeslash. Going on alone is braver than facing any archdemon.


A butterfly has gotten one of its legs caught in the clasp of her travel bag.

Leliana pauses when she notices, its black and orange wings flapping furiously as it tries to free itself. Gingerly, she lowers the pack onto the ground, being mindful of the dirt on the road as she leans down and tries to pry the clasp apart and free it. There are soft flutters against the side of her palm as it struggles.

"Be careful," she chastises, and even as she says it her eyes widen, for before she can finish her act of mercy the butterfly has pulled itself free.

At the cost of its leg.

It breezes unevenly past her on the air before alighting upon the nearest bush, leaving its spindly limb behind to stick morbidly up from her pack. She stares at it for a moment. Her hand hesitates, and then she reaches over and plucks it loose, letting it fall to the dry summer ground. When she looks back towards the bush, the butterfly has moved on.

"_There's a… good chance I won't survive this battle," she had said, her gaze steady and strong, looking up at her from where her head rested upon her breast. _

"_All battles are that way," Leliana had replied, feeling something sink inside of herself nevertheless. "There is a chance I will perish too, no? We have both had close calls before."_

"_There is that," she had agreed, smiling a little sadly at her as she tightened her hold around her waist. The room at Redcliffe Castle suddenly felt a little colder, somehow. "But if I die…"_

"_Don't." It had been easier to cut her off than let her continue. "Don't speak of such things. The Maker will see us through, or He will carry us to his golden halls."_

_The smile grew a little, and she closed her beautiful eyes, letting out a heavy breath that seemed carry the weight of the world in it. "Or He will see us parted," she continued resolutely. "I don't wish to leave you alone."_

"_Then do not die," Leliana had simply proclaimed. "That seems to be the most obvious solution."_

She shakes off the memory, carrying on down the road again without another glance around for the crippled butterfly. Despite her best efforts, however, it persists, scraping through her mind with bits and pieces. Like shattered glass.

"_I… I am so sorry, Leliana," Alistair had said, grief written on his features as she knelt beside the white stone slab. Her legs just wouldn't hold her up anymore. She thought she might have felt terrible, except that it didn't seem like she could feel anything at all. Just cold._

"_I know, Alistair," she had whispered back to him, even though it wasn't what she wanted to say. What she wanted to say was 'how could you let her die?'. What she wanted to say was 'why was it her, and not you?'. What she wanted to say was what she wanted to shout, angrily, at the top of her lungs, demanding to know now if he still thought sparing Loghain would have been such a terrible thing to attempt, if the crown he was wearing was worth the life of his friend._

_But she already knew the answer to such things, so there was no need to ask them and grind the dirt into both of their wounds. "The Maker led me to her," she said instead, briefly wondering where the large droplets of water were coming from. Then she realized. Ah – her cheeks. Of course. "The Maker led me to her, and then took her from me. She is with Him now."_

_The look on his face had been pained, and she knew that he, himself, did not believe it. Even if he wanted to._

"_She is with Him now."_

Her eyes cast up towards the sky, which is uncommonly blue and cheerful. "I am jealous of you," she tells the fluffy white clouds, breathing in a little shakily but managing to keep her voice light. "She is such wonderful company. Always a good listener. I wonder if you take advantage of her ear to vent your sorrows?"

The clouds do not reply, of course, but she only sighs a little, her boots kicking up dust along the road. "You must have many of them, I am sure. Andraste as well." There are a few more butterflies not far ahead of her, taking nectar from the stubborn yellow flowers that grow even in the packed earth of the road. It is a backward path she is traveling, nearly overgrown and well out of the way of general traffic. "I would hate to think that her fine skills might go to waste. But surely, you will know this better than I do."

She keeps her pack well-clear of the butterflies when she passes them, and averts her gaze a little as well.

"I'll bet she is busy watching over us, no?" she guesses, a stray pebble bouncing unexpectedly off of her boot. "Making certain we take care of ourselves. Perhaps she has her eye on Sten, as he takes his long trip back home. Or Morrigan, wherever she wanders." She draws another breath to keep herself steady.

"_You think I do not recognize you," she had said, staring at the little fox as it waited for her to open the large hall door. "But your face is far too crafty. Even for the animal you have chosen."_

_The fox had paused, regarding her cautiously. She supposed it was cowardice that had driven her. Perhaps the archdemon had seemed too great a threat to risk, even for someone she seemed to call a friend. But whatever the reason, after a moment, she had reached out and opened the door._

_Without looking back, silver beast had vanished into the night._

"Or maybe," she continues. "She is watching me. But that seems like it would be boring. I'm only walking at the moment, after all." Giving it some thought, she shakes her head. "No. More likely she is looking over Alistair? He will certainly need the help. I don't think being royalty suits him very much." The laugh that escapes her wants to be lighter than it is.

The clouds drift lazily along, and after a few minutes a wind kicks up, catching her hair. She makes an effort to send a tune along it. Nothing special. Only an old folksong she picked up when she first came to Ferelden, the tale of a Dalish hunter who fell in love with a nobleman's daughter. Not a very happy story. But then, so few stories end happily.

"_Leliana… come here, child." Wynne's voice had surprised her. The castle was quiet with the still of night, everyone brokenly exhausted and repairing from the battle even weeks after the fighting was done. She hadn't expected anyone else to be awake. A foolish miscalculation, of course. The arms which wound around her were not unwelcome, but they felt strange, nonetheless._

_It had been some time since she had been embraced by anyone other than her. "I am trying to compose a ballad," she found herself whispering into the older woman's shoulder._

"_That sounds lovely. I'm sure she would be honoured."_

"_The… the words…" her voice had broken. "The words are hard to find." The hand on her back and the gentle shushing of her protests had been her undoing, and before she could stop herself, she had been crying again. Weeping long, steady tears that never seemed to have an end, as if the Maker had taken out her soul and replaced it with an ocean._

"_You'll get there," Wynne had assured her, once she settled into soft hiccoughs, pulling away with murmured apologies. "Things seem dark now. But in time, you'll be able to remember her with less pain, and when you do I am certain that you will know precisely what to sing."_

_She had nodded, but in her heart, she knew the song would be done long before the pain had dulled enough for that. If it ever went away at all._

Her voice falters on the lyrics where the nobleman's daughter throws herself before her father's sword in order to save her lover. She lets them drift off, her tired smile falling away with a sigh. Once, she had thought that the tragedy in the story was beautiful. That the pain added to the poignancy of the love, making the sweetness all the sweeter, and the bravery of the couple that much more stirring.

Now she finds herself more inclined to disagree.

How selfish of the hunter, to presume that his lover would be happy with him if he killed her father. How foolish of the father, to think that his daughter would stand idly by while he slew her lover. How hopelessly, hopelessly _stupid_ of the girl to ever think that she could keep the life she was accustomed to _and_ the lover it would never accept.

"It must be said, though," she tells the clouds. "There are some tragedies which come whether or not people are fools."

"_That was beautiful," Alistair had told her, breaking into the silence which had followed immediately after her song was done. The court had gone quiet. Many assembled had known the subject of the ballad personally, and those who had not were taking their cue from them, filling the room with the kind of silent reverence usually reserved for Chantry blessings._

"That is your doing, I know," she tells the clouds. "But I am sure you have your reasons. Even if it seems easy to forget, sometimes."

_She had woken with tears in her eyes. Certainly not for the first night. Her throat burned as she curled up on her side, grabbing up the blankets around her, burying her face into her pillow and clutching it to herself. She had dreamed of darkness. An echoing shadow, deep and wide that stretched out before her, with her lover's voice calling from the void._

"_Leliana? Where are you?" it had cried._

"_Here! I am here!" she had called back, but no matter how she screamed, the words didn't seem to break through the black._

_She wept until dawn, trying fold in on herself and escape the silence which held no touch, no comfort, no reassuring whisper in the night._

Her steps pause again as she sees tracks in the road. They are narrow, like the light hooves of deer, but there are heavier ones beside them, and quite a few altogether. For a moment she regards them, before moving again. Stepping around the interesting little marks. The Dalish aravels will have passed through here, then. They have been doing much traveling as their clans recovered, both from the war and the effects of Zathrian's curse.

Deciding to take it as a sign, she follows them when they veer off onto a beaten track after a time, leading into the shadows of trees and forest.

"_My lady?" the maid had asked, looking alarmed and uncertain as Leliana grasped her shoulders, eyes still flowing with that seemingly endless well of tears._

"_It must be it," she replied, smiling so hard that it hurt. "He is giving me a sign. I know what I must do, that I must go and be with her!"_

_The young woman had attempted to calm her, but it had been no use as she hastily wiped the tears from her face, pacing the room anxiously. "I must not weep, of course. She would not be so happy to see me if I looked miserable. Always greet a lover with a pretty face… well, that's what Marjolaine would say, but really I do not think she would hold it against me."_

_Nodding, the maid had backed towards the door, hands raised in a placating fashion. "Of course, miss," she had soothed. "If you just wait right here, why don't I go and fetch the physician and we can tell him all about it?"_

_Leliana had given her a perplexed look. "Physician?" she had asked. "I doubt I will need one, where I am going."_

_Swallowing hard, the girl had hurried out of the room. Ultimately Leliana decided not to pay her any mind. It had all become so clear, so simple – everything had begun with a vision, and now the Maker was giving her another. That was what the dreams had been about._

'_I don't wish to leave you alone', she had said, before… before._

"_If you cannot come to me, my love, then it remains that I shall come to you," she had whispered, before arming herself for light travel. Fort Drakon was still a mess, but that didn't matter. She would get through. It ought to happen in the same place, she had thought then, so that she would be sure to follow her properly._

_She would go to the Maker's seat, and be with her forever._

The path looks like it has been overgrown for quite some time, and then recently cleared. As she walks along she hears the sound of a birdcall – and with her trained ears, knows that it isn't actually one. A small smile takes up her lips. She wonders if the signal is to warn of her presence, or if it serves some other purpose.

_Despite best efforts, the smell of darkspawn blood still permeated the stone and air at the top of the fort, dark red stains that had yet to be ground out scarring the surface. Several of the battlements had been blown out, and the structure was unstable at best. She had nimbly picked her way along it._

_There, there was where one of the ballistas had been. In her ears she could still here the ringing of steel through flesh, the shouting. "Leliana! Fire that thing while I distract it!" she had called to her from the thick of the fighting. It had been so hard to think with that beast right there, boiling the air around it as it tore through soldiers like they were rag dolls._

_But she'd managed. That thought in mind, she retraced her steps towards the largest mark of all – huge and black, where the archdemon had fallen. As she knelt there, before it, she had wondered if the stone would ever be the same. The air around it still felt smoky and tasted like bile. It had not been a compelling place to kneel, but she remained, closing her eyes as she saw that scene again. The light had been so bright. The wound had pierced straight through the creature's skull, and for a moment she thought that the Maker himself had lowered a hand to tear it from the earth._

_But only for a moment. Letting out a breath, she reached for her belt, and unsheathed her dagger. The slim blade caught the light, glinting with promise as she lifted it and held it to her own heart._

_For a moment, the only thought in her head was that it was going to take a lot of strength to push it straight through before the pain got to her. She had sucked in a deep breath, ready to do it, to follow the will of the Maker and find her again…_

…_And slipped._

_The blade had cut, but not deeply enough. A patch of the stone suddenly felt too slick beneath her knee, causing her to jerk to the side as she suddenly lost her purchase. She lowered one hand to regain her balance, dagger slicing her skin and then skittering off of the leather and fabric of her shirt._

_With a wince of pain, she dropped it, letting it clatter to the tainted stone as she reflexively reached for the gash._

The mark is still healing. She runs her fingers thoughtlessly over it, glancing between the trees as the air begins to smell less like the dirt of the road, and more like the moss and growth of the forest. Eventually she begins to feel a familiar strain in her legs, the weary pull of muscles over-used, and manages to find a clear break by the side of the path to rest in. She opens her pack, pulling free the most quickly spoiling foodstuffs she has with her, and making her lunch of it.

Something scurries in the treetops overhead. She cranes her neck a little, trying to see if it's a squirrel or perhaps a bird. A few leaves fall, green and vibrant as they flutter to the ground. Their colour is beautiful.

_For a time after that unexpected, jarring failure, she knelt slumped over where she was. Her breast stung, blood spilling down her front and onto her knees. The air still smelled fetid, and all around her was a dark, stifling quiet._

_Maybe it hadn't meant anything. Maybe, she had thought, she should just lift the dagger and carry on._

_She was so tired of pain._

_But if the Maker had wanted her to die, she knew in her heart that she would not have slipped._

The animals are too skittish for her to get a good look at them, and rather than keep trying, she closes her pack again and takes back to the road. Her legs feel better for the rest, and she walks until the dusty streaks of twilight begin to reach across the sky. As the first few stars are making their appearances, she reaches the Dalish camp.

It isn't the same semi-permanent structure they encountered in the Brecilian Forest. Most of the camp is still tied up in the aravels, and only a few tents have been pitched, with elves milling about as they make ready to build fires and settle in for the night. The halla aren't penned, but rather tied together by long strands of light rope, and there are several scouts around the borders.

To her surprise, Leliana recognizes one. She is the woman who first greeted them in the Brecilian Forest, when they found Zathrian's clan.

Her presence doesn't seem to bring much alarm or surprise, though more than a handful of elves give her wary, suspicious, or even warning looks. The familiar scout – her name slips her mind – approaches, nodding to show that she has been recognized, too.

"Andaran atish'an, bard," she greets as she approaches. "We recognize you as lethallan of the Warden. Your presence is not unwelcome here, though I must ask why you have come."

Leliana smiles, admiring for the umpteenth time the lyrical notes of the Dalish tongue. "I am afraid that I'm not certain myself," she admits. "I walked, and my footsteps guided me here."

The Dalish raises and eyebrow, clearly surprised, but doesn't voice an objection. "If you wish to make camp with us, then we ask only that you make no trouble. We are heading east, to cross the mountains into less blight-scarred lands, so that we might better recover our strength," she admits.

With a nod of thanks, Leliana proceeds into the camp. She sees a few more relatively familiar elves, although the group is too small to be all of the Dalish from Zathrian's clan – even _with_ the losses of the fighting tolled – so she guesses that they have split into smaller groups for travel. The mood seems mixed. Tired, and somber, but also carrying a note of relief.

Her gaze shifts to some of the work being done. Most of it uses skills that are apparently quite different from what she knows, but after a few minutes she finds the red-haired storyteller she recalls from her first trip into the Brecilian Forest. He is organizing some of the set-up for what looks like the main campfire.

"Andaran atish'an," he greets, friendlier than before. "I am… surprised to see you again, shemlen."

"Not unpleasantly so, I hope," she replies. "I have been invited to stay the night."

He shrugs off her concerns. "After the battle, it seems my people would be inclined to welcome _anyone_ who wasn't a darkspawn," he replies. "Nevermind a friend of the Great Warden. You will have no trouble from me – though if you wish to make yourself useful, you might help to lift the higher bundles off of the aravels."

It takes her a moment to realize that he is teasing her for her height. She purses her lips. "And to which proud warrior should I offer such help?" she asks.

The comment earns her just a twitch of a smile, before his expression falls a little. "There are precious few 'proud warriors' left, I'm afraid," he replies. "Though hunters are often far worse for such things. Rabbits, after all, rarely beat their opponents until they are bloody for their failures." With a sigh, he gestures towards the fire. "If you want to help, go with some of the children and gather wood. That should suffice."

She knows she's being given the equivalent of busy work, but she takes it all the same. There are three children who go with her, none older than twelve, their faces unmarked by tattoos and their eyes watching her curiously.

"Sorel says you're a shemlen storyteller. Is that true?" one of them asks.

"Yes, it is," she agrees.

"Doesn't your clan need you?" another wonders. "Who's telling them their stories?"

She smiles, and gamely lets the children pile her arms full of the bits of twigs and larger sticks they find, until she is sufficiently burdened. "Other storytellers, of course," she replies. "Minstrels and bards – that's what we are called, generally – tend to travel very often. We collect stories as we go, and carry them on to new places that haven't heard them before. That way, the tales are passed far and wide."

The children look quite taken with the idea. "Sometimes clans trade storytellers for a while," one of them informs her. "Sorel says it's to keep the tales from changing too much."

"Oh, yes, you must be careful of that," Leliana agrees. "Stories change all of the time, and not even because people mean to rewrite them. Though, I think that is part of their charm as well."

"But if they change too much, how do you know if they're true anymore?" another asks.

She shrugs – a little awkwardly, due to her burden. "You don't. The consolation is that sometimes, with such things, the truth is less important than the message of the tale. Usually when everyone involved is long… when they are gone."

Her throat closes off a little then, and perhaps noticing the change in her, the children don't ask any more questions.

_Even after her failed attempt at the fort, she could not simply return to the palace. So she gathered up what little she had brought with her, pausing in the city long enough to pick up a few supplies and get her wound treated, and then left. There were no parting words or goodbyes. She had no idea where she was going._

"_Maker guide my steps," she had murmured, once Denerim was a distant shadow behind her. "Show me the path I am meant to take, wherever it may lead."_

_Then she kept going._

Sorel takes one look at her face when she gets back, and says nothing, merely directing her to where she should place the wood they have gathered. When the sky is almost completely dark, the Dalish light their fires, and begin to drag narrow benches around them and make ready their meals. Leliana sits a little apart from them, eating from her pack and watching them go about their business. Some of the women leave to bathe. She opts not to join them, fearful of what memories might surface if she did.

The thought gives her glimpses of them anyway. Silver moonlight. Water that is biting cold for a few minutes, before the cold ceases to matter, and she feels warm fingertips tracing the curve of her hip.

Approaching footsteps draw her attention, and she looks up to see Sorel standing before her. "Come and sit by the fire," he requests. "We're about to sing the songs of mourning. You should join us."

Wordlessly, she agrees, and when several of the older elves begin to sing, she listens. It doesn't take long for her to pick up the words, but she can't quite find the energy or the will to join them. Nevertheless, there is a certain comfort to the sounds, to the sentiments that spill out into the night air as the clan grieves for its losses.

When it's finished, Sorel beckons her to sit by him. "Do not fear for your friend's spirit," he advises. "Falon'Din will not fail to see her safely to the other side."

"She is waiting for me at the seat of the Maker," Leliana replies, almost unthinkingly. The warmth from the fire reaches her.

Sorel looks at her for a long moment, then shrugs. "It may well be," he replies. "Once our people walked with Falon'Din and returned from where they came again, but now, none return, so we cannot say where he leads us to. If your Maker exists, then he is in good company with the newly dead."

He hands her a small wooden bowl, and after a moment she accepts it. The broth inside is warm and savory, and surprisingly filling, even as it adds to the quick meal she took before. As she drinks, the storyteller turns towards the large fire before them. "It would be customary now to tell or sing a tale," he says. "Perhaps of a fallen hero, one who performed some great deed."

His eyes slip towards her, and she catches on just a second too late. "You were there when the archdemon was slain, weren't you, bard?" he asks.

For a minute her words stick in her throat.

"I don't know…" she begins, but stops again when she sees the look in his eye.

"You are a storyteller," he reminds her. "If you do not tell this tale, then who will?"

Still, she hesitates, until unbidden the words of her own ballad float up to the forefront of her mind. Her gaze falls to the empty wooden bowl in her hands. Carefully, she runs a thumb along the smoothed edge, and swallows. Her throat feels warm and soothed, blocked only by emotion.

Yet, when she begins to sing, the lyrics just seem to pour out of her.

She sings of beginnings – of pain, and tragedy, and sorrow. She sings of Ostagar, of Morrigan and Flemeth, and those events which transpired before she herself came into the tale. She sings of hearing the Maker, and watching him guide her path. She sings of the elves, yes, and the dwarves, and the humans of Redcliffe, the mages of the Circle, the ashes of Andraste.

But above all the events, she sings of love. Because that is the story she alone can tell.

The last time she sang, the words felt heavy, weighted with regrets and the prospect of dark, empty future. Such things are still there. But now she can feel others as well, piercing through the veil of misery, even if only a little. In life, she will never hear her voice again, or feel her touch, or seek her counsel.

That does not, however, erase her memories of the time when she _could_.

It does not take away what she already has. What she will always have, burning bright behind the pain – fueling it, sometimes, and fending it off at others.

Her voice breaks on the last word, and her gaze fixes on the dancing flames. The camp is as quiet as the royal hall in Denerim once was.

But not for as long. After a pause, an elven scout steps forward, and to Leliana's surprise she begins to sing her own tale. Her voice isn't very good, and the form of the song is choppy and too hasty at parts, but the sentiment it carries is true. She sings of a sister who braved the woods to hunt when the werewolves were still stalking the clan, and did not live to return.

Her song is followed by another. A warrior who battled against several darkspawn attacks sings of his friend, who survived alongside him through all but the last. He, in turn, is followed, and then again, until elves begin to disappear into their tents to sleep, and Leliana herself feels the persistent call of exhaustion.

Before she leaves, Sorel taps her on the shoulder. "When the dawn comes, where will you go?" he asks.

She doesn't know the answer to that. So she simply shrugs.

He gives her a knowing look. "Zathrian once told me that death is hardest for the living," he confides. "Because we are the ones who must carry on. But I think, wherever they are, the dead must miss us just as fiercely. So we should continue with our lives the way we would want them to continue with theirs. We must think of their own loneliness, and then overcome ours in the hopes that they will do the same." A rueful smile curves his lips. "Which is easier said than done."

The sincerity on his face is plain to see. Leliana lowers her head, but all she can think is that words – however perfect, however beautiful – just do not seem to be enough.

But they are all she has, now.

"Thank you," she replies anyway. "I will consider what you have said."

The storyteller nods in a manner that makes her think he knows exactly what is going through her mind. One of the scouts she saw heading to bathe earlier offers her a place in one of the communal tents, and it's warm and quiet as she curls up in the dark, amidst the sounds of sleeping elves.

She wakes when the other occupants of the tent begin to stir. The leader temporarily assigned to the group – ordinarily the First to another clan's keeper – offers to let her travel with them for a time, but she politely declines. Company, she has realized, suits her for a while, but she does not think she can handle it in too great an amount just yet. So instead she takes her leave, trading a few of the coins in her purse for extra supplies and bidding Sorel farewell.

Retracing her steps towards the road she came in by, she decides to return to the path she was walking before the aravel tracks distracted her. The day is bright again, and she turns another eye towards the clouds.

"I am glad you led me there," she says. There is no answer, of course. It takes her a while to make her way back to the path, but once she gets there finding the road again is easy. There are fresh tracks – human traders, she guesses, by the wagon marks. She pauses for a moment to examine them.

Then, she keeps going.


End file.
